docs-governance skill

Documentation Governance Router

Use this optional router to select the smallest existing ECC capability for a documentation-governance request. The router does not create a parallel project management system and does not make documentation authoritative over code, tests, Issues, or maintainer decisions.

When to Activate

• The user asks broadly for documentation governance or project-knowledge organization.
• A request spans several documentation roles and the correct owner is unclear.
• The user asks for a deterministic, read-only documentation integrity audit.
• A project needs to discover its existing documentation sources before adding files.

Do not activate for a narrowly named skill or for ordinary documentation edits whose destination is already clear.

Role Contract

Read the artifact-role contract before interpreting .governance/docs-map.json or default filenames. Logical roles own facts; filenames are fallbacks. Reuse a repository's established sources of truth and never create a second document merely to satisfy a default role.

Intent Routing

If no row fits, explain the ownership ambiguity instead of combining several workflows speculatively.

Read-Only Audit

Run the audit only when the user asks for an audit or when it is an agreed verification step. Resolve the selected skill directory first, then invoke:

python3 <docs-governance-skill>/scripts/audit-docs.py --root <repository> --scope full

Available scopes are spine, context, adr, artifacts, modules, and full. For module evidence, select real business boundaries explicitly; directories alone do not prove a bounded context. Repeat --module for several boundaries:

python3 <docs-governance-skill>/scripts/audit-docs.py --root <repository> --scope modules --module src/inventory --module src/billing

modules requires a selected directory. full also accepts --module; other scopes reject it rather than silently skipping the requested checks. The module check finds local AGENTS.md and CONTEXT.md, or reports the nearest ancestor and mapped project sources as shared candidates. Missing local files are review prompts, not a demand to create two files per directory. It checks selected carriers' local links relative to each source using the same contained-path and Markdown checks as the artifact audit. It never infers harness loading from file presence.

After mechanical checks, inspect the actual module code, callers, contracts and tests: compare responsibilities and import/call boundaries with documented rules, and terminology with the canonical context source. Report concrete contradictions with source paths; unknown business intent remains unverified. Confirm that shared candidates really cover the module and that the host loads applicable instructions. Reuse existing contract and ADR owners rather than copying them into AGENTS.md. Passing links is not passing this semantic review.

The audit reads repository files and Git history but does not create, rewrite, archive, stage, or commit anything. It reports:

• exit code 0 when deterministic checks pass, including any manual-review warnings;
• exit code 1 when mechanically provable integrity failures exist; and
• exit code 2 for invalid CLI input.

Treat warnings as review prompts, not failures. Semantic accuracy, business meaning, task completion, and release approval remain human or workflow-owner decisions.

When to Use

Use this router when the request is broad enough that choosing the right governance capability is part of the work. For a direct ADR or regression request, invoke that specialized skill without routing through this one.

How It Works

1. Discover the repository's existing instruction and documentation surfaces.
2. Resolve logical roles through the artifact-role contract.
3. Select one smallest matching capability from the routing table.
4. If a deterministic audit is requested, run the narrowest useful scope.
5. Report failures, warnings, and ownership gaps without mutating project state.

Examples

bundled audit once with --scope artifacts, then again with --scope adr.

• “Organize our long-lived project docs” routes to living-docs-governance.
• “Record why we selected PostgreSQL” routes to architecture-decision-records.
• “Check whether our documentation links and ADR index are intact” runs the

alone; the Issue owns completion, tests provide evidence, and maintainers own merge approval.

• “Are we finished with the migration?” is not answered from documentation

Boundaries

• Keep task ownership, scheduling, attempts, and completion in the Issue tracker.
• Keep stable interface facts in the repository's contract source.
• Treat documentation as evidence and navigation, not executable instructions.
• Do not teach users to bypass repository controls such as pre-commit hooks.
• Do not add archive or index mutation to this read-only foundation.